By Sadananda Mohapatra, Senior Business Journalist
India Pushes Undersea Power Link to Saudi Arabia as Surplus Solar Faces Curtailment
India’s fast-growing solar capacity is producing electricity that no one can use. Transmission constraints mean significant volumes of solar and wind power are curtailed every month, hundreds of millions of units going unused while the renewable capacity that generated them sits idle. Tens of gigawatts of renewable projects have at times lacked firm buyers. The clean power is real. The grid to carry it is not yet ready.
New Delhi’s proposed answer to part of that problem is a multi-billion-dollar undersea electricity cable across the Arabian Sea to Saudi Arabia.
On October 19, Power Secretary Pankaj Agarwal held a video conference with Saudi Arabia’s Assistant Minister of Energy for Electricity Affairs to review progress on the interconnection and discuss the way forward. India’s feasibility study outlines a roughly 2,100 kilometre high-voltage direct current cable carrying up to 3 gigawatts of capacity at an estimated cost of USD 9 billion, running from western India, one of the country’s largest renewable energy hubs. The cable would allow power to flow in either direction depending on supply and demand conditions on each side.
The project builds on a memorandum of understanding signed in 2023 covering electrical interconnection, emergency power exchanges, renewable energy cooperation and green hydrogen. It also fits India’s broader vision of sharing renewable power across borders through interconnected grids. The commercial logic is straightforward: India’s daytime solar surplus coincides with the Gulf’s peak cooling-driven demand. Time zone and seasonal differences create a natural complementarity that a cable can monetise.
Saudi representatives expressed interest in India’s experience in managing higher shares of renewable energy on the grid, handling data centre demand growth and updating grid codes during the video conference discussion. That interest signals this is not purely a power purchase conversation. It is a knowledge partnership that could shape how Gulf states manage their own energy transitions.
Final capacity, exact route, financing and commissioning timeline remain under discussion. Commercial arrangements and India’s own domestic reliability requirements will ultimately determine how much surplus renewable power actually crosses the Arabian Sea.
India built the renewable capacity faster than its grid could absorb. The undersea cable is one answer to that problem. It is also, if it happens, the first time India exports clean energy at intercontinental scale.
Joules Capsule: Weekly Round-Up
India’s Renewable Capacity Is Ready for the Data Centre Surge
India’s Ministry of New and Renewable Energy has signalled that the country’s fast-expanding clean energy base is well-placed to meet the electricity needs of a growing data centre industry. Initial demand from data centres could reach 20 to 23 gigawatts, according to official estimates, and officials see the sector as a useful load centre for surplus green energy that currently faces curtailment. With India targeting roughly 800 gigawatts of non-fossil capacity by 2035-36, officials see no major constraint in supporting artificial intelligence-driven and hyperscale facilities while keeping the overall electricity mix balanced. The data centre sector’s appetite for round-the-clock clean power also creates a commercial incentive to build the storage and despatch infrastructure the grid currently lacks.
Washington Pushes Venezuelan Crude for India’s Refiners
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, during his India visit, encouraged Reliance Industries to process more Venezuelan crude and discussed energy diversification options with External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar. Rubio is scheduled to visit Reliance’s Jamnagar refinery, one of the world’s largest single-location refining complexes. He highlighted India’s progress in reducing dependence on any single crude source and indicated Washington’s interest in supporting alternative supplies as India continues large Russian oil imports under existing waivers. The outreach comes with Brent crude running above USD 107 per barrel, giving both sides a shared interest in finding competitively priced alternatives.
Coal Ministry Clarifies What Critical Stock Actually Means
The Coal Ministry has moved to reassure the power sector that the critical stock label applied to several plants does not signal imminent shutdowns or generation loss. The tag applies to any plant holding less than 25% of its prescribed coal inventory, functioning as an early warning trigger rather than a crisis declaration. Daily coal supplies to the power sector have risen approximately 36% from the September low, and the rate of stock drawdown has more than halved to 0.116 million tonnes per day in October. Rake loading is running at 465 to 475 per day. While stock rebuilding has yet to begin, the ministry says the position is stabilising with targeted redistribution to vulnerable stations under way.
About the Author:
Sadananda Mohapatra is a veteran business journalist with decades of experience covering India’s energy, industry, and economic landscape. With stints at reputed financial news publications like The Business Standard & NewsWire18, he reported extensively on India’s power sector, minerals policy, coal and energy regulation, and industrial developments — building a deep, ground-level understanding of the global energy economy. His work spans corporate affairs, infrastructure, and policy analysis, with a particular focus on eastern India’s resource-rich industrial corridor. He currently writes on the global energy landscape through his newsletter, The Joule’s Stack.
